What Verna Adams loved about Edenside Christian Church is that everyone was invited and no one was turned away.

"It was such a loving church," she said.

But the church, 1415 Bards­town Road, closed its doors recently because of dwindling attendance, and the building is being sold.

Adams, who is 76 and had been going to Edenside since 1952 when she was 14, is now a church elder who is also on the board of the church.

She said the congregation voted unanimously earlier this year to close the church.

A sale is pending, she said. She declined to identify the buyer, but she said the building will no longer be a church.

Money from the sale will go to charitable organizations. Highlands Community Ministries will be one of those, as the church had long been involved with the group.

The church dates to 1907, when the congregation began meeting in a storefront. It moved into its own building on Bardstown Road at Baringer Avenue in 1909. The church tower was added in 1927.

Before it closed, Adams said, the church was drawing only about 15 to 20 people at a service — on a good Sunday. Ten years ago, that number was closer to 150.

Shirley Botkins, Adams' sister, said one reason the church's numbers dwindled is that the congregation consisted of a lot of elderly people. "Once they were deceased, we just didn't grow."

Botkins, 74, said many of the church's elderly members have passed away in the last five years.

Along with being an elder at the church, Adams has served on the Highlands Community Ministries board for 20 years and, though she will no longer be Edenside's representative, she will remain a board member.

Troy Burden, executive director of Highlands Community Ministries, said that with the church's closing, his group will lose a congregation that was active in helping it with financial support and donations, such as back-to-school supplies, Thanksgiving baskets and Christmas gifts for different programs. A branch of the Highlands Community Ministries Day Care center was also housed at Edenside for years.

"Even though they were small, they were very active," Burden said. "They went above and beyond what you would think a church that size could do."

Sarah West, who'd been a church member since she was in high school, compiled the church's history.

West, 75, said she's always loved history and wanted to document that the congregation has always been loving and helpful, such as when members welcomed people into their church to sleep and eat during the 1937 flood.

"I think it's astounding that a church lasts that long and it did so much for the community," she said.